Jay here, with a brief break from our regularly-scheduled programming! Along with a handful of other podcasts and communities, we’re part of a very small closed beta for a new community-oriented social platform, Imzy; and we’re very pleased to finally be able to invite you to join us!
If you’ve been around long, you may have noticed that we keep a pretty tight lock on the social media we use. We don’t have a Facebook page. We use Tumblr very casually, and largely to boost and crosspost material from our website. Our YouTube comments are permanently disabled; and we do everything we can to direct discussion to the comments here.
There’s a reason for that: it’s incredibly important to us to have our community spaces be fun, civil, and safe; and for those qualities to be supported at an infrastructural level. The community that has come together–largely independently–around this podcast is freaking amazing. You are some of the most engaged, enthusiastic, and all-around nice people we’ve ever met, on or off the Internet. And we want to keep it that way.
Which is part of why we’re excited about Imzy. It’s explicitly oriented around communities–think the rough structure reddit with actual oversight, infrastructure, and active anti-harassment tools. If it works the way we’re hoping it will, it’ll mean a community that you can post directly to–not just comment on our stuff–and a lot of new ways to engage.
Not only is this so far shaping up to be a pretty cool platform, but you also get a totally sweet bribe for joining us there, because Imzy commissioned an X-clusive giveaway t-shirt from the always-amazing Dylan Todd:
Here’s how it works: Click over here, and enter your info; and we’ll get back to you with an official beta invite ASAP! We’ll also have physical cards with invite codes with us at ECCC.
As I wrote above, we’re pretty excited about this community, but mostly? We’re really looking forward to seeing you there. <3
“[…] If you’ve been around long, you may have noticed that we keep a pretty tight lock on the social media we use. We don’t have a Facebook page. We use Tumblr very casually, and largely to boost and crosspost material from our website. Our YouTube comments are permanently disabled; and we do everything we can to direct discussion to the comments here.
There’s a reason for that: it’s incredibly important to us to have our community spaces be fun, civil, and safe; and for those qualities to be supported at an infrastructural level. […]”
Just one word: BRAVO. 🙂
I love that panel so much. I sent it to my sister, who hasn’t been exposed to X-men since the 90s cartoon. She was confused, but did not diminish my love of that panel.
Major kudos to you both for your thoughtfulness on keeping the X-plaining internet community inclusive and clean.
However, because I am also incredibly shallow I must have. THAT. SHIRT. UNGLAUBLICH.
Quick question about the invite process. How will you know who is coming from your podcast when applying on the Imzy site? I sadly can’t attend the cons you attend (one of the downsides of being in Europe), but would love to join the discussion.
I’m not sure precisely how this’ll work post-beta, but for now, I have to manually approve invitation requests that come in through our community. There aren’t a lot of ways to get there that aren’t by way of here. =)
I got in new to the podcast and super excited to contribute.
Thanks for the invite- as with most social media, it reminds me a lot of certain elements of BBS softwares. I swear, someday I’ll get my C64 back online 😀